


Learning to Dance

by silkinsilence



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, Existential Angst, Friendship, Gen, How Does One Tag a Non-Disturbing Fic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Symmetra Joins the Family, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7497471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In joining Overwatch, Symmetra feels as if she's intruding on a family. But that family is all too willing to open its arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Symmetra, and I wanted to write about her hanging with the gang, so. Hopefully I will update this; possibly I will regret it and delete it in the morning. Everybody is in Overwatch, even those people (like Hanzo) who aren't necessarily canonically in Overwatch. 
> 
> There may (Mei?) be OOCness, though I will try my hardest to avoid it.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya does _not_ have a stick up her ass, thank you very much.

"You're pretty good at this."

"I have talented fingers."

Hana giggled at that for reasons Satya didn't comprehend. The girl set down her controller, apparently indicating they were done playing, and Satya followed suit. She supposed there was something fun in controlling pixels on a screen, shooting people who revived instead of staying in the ground. But it also seemed like a pastime for children, not for an agent of Overwatch.

"Are we done?" she asked. She mindlessly rubbed her fingers back and forth over the buttons, appreciating the way they felt under her skin.

"Yeah, I'm set to livestream soon. We can definitely play again soon, though. I have to shape you up if we're actually going to play together!" Hana turned her attention to her computer. Satya, unsure whether that was a dismissal or not, stayed in place.

"Aren't there more important things to be done?"

"Like what? I'm not on a mission right now, and I have to make sure I'm at the top of my game!" Hana was typing away at the keyboard, clearly more invested in whatever was happening on the screen than in their conversation. Satya had felt okay, maybe even good, while they'd been playing, but now she was remembering that she was an outsider here. Hana had indulged her, not the other way around.

Age made no difference. She was twenty-eight now, but still she was a child on the edge of the classroom, looking at groups of other children and feeling the panic of knowing she did not belong with them.

"Training, surely, or doing something closer to home? Spain and Morocco undoubtedly have criminal elements we could identify and eliminate, but instead you sit here and play your games."

Satya did not mean to insult the girl. She was only curious. But now Hana had looked away from her screen, her childlike face screwed up in a frown, and Satya felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. She'd alienated the first person to reach out to her at this place.

"For your information, playing games only enhances my combat readiness," Hana said, and then her anger seemed to disappear. She smiled. "Don't tell me you do nothing but work all the time."

"I work to bring about a better world."

"Maybe you should visit Angela and see if she can get that stick out of your ass. You haven't been hanging out with Hanzo, have you? Or Fareeha?" Hana was looking at the screen again. "Come on! That was fun, wasn't it? Do I have to teach you how to have fun?"

Satya was guessing that the casualness of her tone meant she was joking, though it was always hard to be sure.

"There are things that I enjoy," she said, perhaps a little defensively.

"Oh yeah? Name one."

"I like...reading. And building. And..." But suddenly her mind was blank.

"Oh, Satya," Hana sighed. "We really have to work on you."

"And dancing! I like dancing," she said, relieved to think of something.

"See, that's fun!" Hana smiled approvingly. She looked surprised. Satya wasn't sure whether to be offended or not. "Dancing. It's not my thing, but maybe Lúcio..."

"I don't think I can get along with him," Satya said sharply.

"Oh, yeah, you two have a thing, don't you? Well, whatever. I'm sure we can find something. Anyway, I really need to start this—"

"Of course." Satya stood, grateful at the idea of some time alone, relieved at the chance to end the awkwardness that had overtaken her since the game ended. "I'll go."

"But we should play again!" Hana looked away from her computer a final time and gave another smile, genuine enough that it made Satya feel a bit better. "I had fun."

"So did I," Satya murmured, and then she smiled as well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya _does not_ have trouble fitting in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I...was not expecting this kind of a response. Thank you, everybody! You certainly know how to make one want to deliver. And so here I am, delivering! I hope you enjoy this lengthier chapter. I don't know how length will vary in future segments. I have a tendency to run long, which is generally not a problem except that it results in a longer delivery time. Probably these will continue to be small-ish snippets, under 2,000 words, except for maybe the final chapters. Perhaps there will be about 10? We'll see.
> 
> I am very, very bad at replying to comments. Usually the first thing to come to mind is "cool beans," which...is not the most appropriate response. And "thanks" feels informal and inadequate. So this is me saying that, like any good egomaniac, I love attention but am terrible at returning it. Or, rather, this is me saying that I very much appreciate all of you and especially your comments, even if I do not respond to them. Please forgive me.
> 
> Enjoy!

The Gibraltar base was easy enough. Satya had always had a good sense of direction, and it served her well in navigating the place. Her room was close to the mess hall and the common room—perhaps a little too close for her liking. She preferred the laboratory, overlooking the water and generally quieter. But Winston was frequently there, the friendly Mei, or Torbjörn.

It wasn't that she didn't like them. Indeed, she was starting to think quite fondly of Mei, and Winston's abilities were undoubtedly admirable. And she could get along with Torbjörn, even if she didn't think as highly of him. But even though she'd become accustomed to sharing her workspace during her many years with Vishkar, these were strangers in a strange place, and she was constantly on edge. Besides, however used to it she'd become, Satya suspected that her preference for working alone would never change.

As a result, she did most of her work at night, and was quite happy for it. She found herself exploring the base in the long night hours too, her echoing footsteps the only sound in the hallways. It felt a much safer place in the darkness, when her only company was her own long shadow.

When she wasn't in her room or the lab, Satya spent a good deal of time in the medical bay. She wasn't looking to remove any sticks from her rear, whatever Hana said; rather, it helped her feel as if she was doing something important, and she'd come to like Doctor Ziegler. The Swiss surgeon was polite to a fault, excellent at her job, and had a lovely voice.

"You're too old to keep getting shot, Jack," she was currently chiding. Morrison had gotten a bullet in the shoulder on his most recent mission, and now he was sitting back as the doctor inspected the wound.

"It's not like there's anyone else to do it," he grunted. To his credit, he was handling the pain with the weary air of one who had been through this many times before.

Satya had never been shot. She had completed her missions under Vishkar with a precision and efficiency that left no room for injury. She eyed the bloody mess of Morrison's shoulder with macabre interest, wondering what it had felt like, wondering whether she'd ever have the chance to know.

"Satya, dear, would you pass me those tweezers? –Thank you." Doctor Ziegler leaned in to begin prying the cloth of Morrison's shirt out of the wound. He hissed, his hands curling into fists on the chair's armrests. "Say what you want. It'll be a dark day for Overwatch when you don't come back."

"That won't happen for a while." Morrison managed to chuckle, and then he looked over at Satya on his other side, probably to distract himself. "Haven't seen you since you first got here. How are you settling in?"

"It's fine. It's been fine," she said, a little too quickly.

Without looking up, Doctor Ziegler spoke. "Hana tells me she's been enjoying your company."

"She has?"

"Well, to use her words...'Satya would be great to hang out with if she could learn to lighten up.'" The doctor smiled a little. "But coming from her, it's a compliment."

"That hell-raiser's definitely a good one to have in your camp." Morrison's sentence ended with a grunt of pain as Doctor Ziegler made a final prod with the tweezers and then set them aside. With Satya's help, she then carefully pulled his shirt off to get a better look at the lesion.

"I suppose," Satya said dubiously.

"Who else have you been talking to? Don't tell me you've just been locking yourself up in the lab," Morrison said.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with being invested in my work." It was defensive, of course. Satya idly wondered how Morrison knew.

"We want you to be happy here," Doctor Ziegler said smoothly. She tutted as she made a closer observation of the wound. "We've got bullet fragments. Do you want an anesthetic, or—"

"Just pull them out," he grunted. "No sense in wasting good supplies."

"May I do it?"

Two faces turned to Satya.

"I have some experience in basic first aid, and I'd like to help."

The doctor looked at Morrison, who shrugged and grinned.

"Knock yourself out."

"I'll be careful." Satya picked up the tweezers herself now, eyeing the glint of metal shards in the bloody gash.

"Anyway, as I was saying, Satya, there's nothing wrong with being involved in your work. But we also want you to get along with everyone. We want you to feel you belong here." Doctor Ziegler turned to rifle through one of her cabinets.

A smile, more than a little cynical, curved Satya's lips. If that was their goal, they might as well give in now.

She carefully pinned a tiny splinter of metal protruding from the wound and dropped it in the waiting tray.

"I'm really fine. Hana _has_ been very kind, and Lena, and Reinhardt..." Though Satya felt a little guilty mentioning the German man, as she'd been doing her best to avoid him since their first few encounters. He was incredibly friendly, and he'd been one of the first to welcome her, but he was just so _loud._

"Angela, you should let Satya take over for you for good. _She's_ not stabbing me with these things on purpose," Morrison said as Satya pried another metal shard loose.

"Somebody has to keep you in your place," the doctor said. A gentle smile belied her words.

Morrison shook his head. "Why don't you and Torbjörn get together and talk about turrets?"

Satya scoffed. "I would not call those pieces of scrap turrets. With all of modern technology available, he goes for a positively medieval construction technique. I would sooner entrust my life to the Junkrat."

Doctor Ziegler and Morrison exchanged a look. Satya didn't notice the corners of their mouths twitching upward. In the sudden silence, she became afraid that she had crossed a line.

"Though, of course, given his advanced age, his methods have clearly worked for him," she hastened to add.

Exactly what the pair thought of her opinions of Torbjörn, Satya would never know, for at that moment the door to the medical bay opened, and in strolled the one person she had avoided above all others. Luckily, the tweezers were far away from Morrison's shoulder, so she managed not to stab him when she jumped.

"Hey, Angela! You got any more of those—"

Lúcio stopped when he saw Satya sitting there. A few awkward seconds passed, wherein the two stared at each other, Lúcio's smile slowly disappearing, Satya's eyes narrowing, and Morrison and Doctor Ziegler watching.

"Mr. dos Santos," Satya said stiffly, managing a nod.

"Ms. Vaswani," he returned. His expression was now neutrally blank. He looked between the three of them, gaze finally settling on the doctor. "I'll come back later."

And then he was gone.

When the door had closed behind him, Morrison started chuckling.

"I guess you two haven't talked through your differences?"

"Talking wouldn't help," Satya sniffed. She returned to her delicate task. It was an effort not to let her fresh irritation impair the quality of her work, but it was an effort she managed. "I have made no secret of my motives and beliefs. It is his—his _values_ that remain nonsensical."

"That's exactly why talking would help, Satya," the doctor said. "He probably feels the same. You mustn't give up before you try."

"Weird to see the kid so on-edge, anyway. I prefer him upbeat." This was all Morrison said.

It was all he said.

But what Satya heard was that she was to blame for Lúcio's drop in mood, and that, as he was obviously a more veteran and important member of Overwatch, she needed to fix the problem herself or face the consequences.

She did not want to lose Morrison's or Doctor Ziegler's approval. But her pride and, more importantly, her sense of _righteousness_ precluded any reconciliation that did not begin with Lúcio ceding.

"Yes," the doctor agreed, frowning. That was the final nail in the coffin. Lúcio was an insider; Satya was not. He belonged here; she did not. She couldn't look at either of them then. She needed an escape.

Luckily, Doctor Ziegler, perhaps noticing the shadow that had crossed her face, offered one.

"Satya, I can finish up here if you'd like to return to the lab."

"Yes, thank you," she said, standing up so quickly she almost upended the tray of medical implements.

"See you at dinner," Morrison said, but Satya was already out the door.

Rays of cold blue light sparked into life from the fingers of her left hand. The familiar sensation of manipulating the beams into an array of geometric shapes was comforting, instantly subduing the swell of discomfort in her.

She did not intend to go to the lab. She was heading for her room.

She contemplated skipping dinner.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya shares a late-night cup of tea with a certain reclusive Shimada.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I so long-winded? Someone stop me.
> 
> More headcanons here. Also, apparently someone at Blizzard said that Hanzo's legs aren't prosthetics, but I don't care. Whoops.
> 
> Thank you again to everybody for your support! This is quite fun to write.

When she finally looked up at a clock, Satya saw that it was past two in the morning. She'd hit a snag on the blueprints that had stalled her for the past half-hour, and she didn't think she was going to make much more progress. It was only when she stood and stretched that she realized how cramped her legs were.

The lab was dark. She much preferred to work by the light of a desk lamp or the light produced by her own left hand rather than the overhead lights. That light was sufficient now as she navigated her way between tables and around equipment, through Mei's plant samples and Torbjörn's heaps of scrap metal. She had a mind to go to the kitchen and make some tea, and maybe getting away from her work for a little while would help her think more clearly.

Winston had initially tasked her with upgrading Overwatch's weapon cache. He'd looked surprised when she requested a different assignment, but had obliged. She did not want to make weapons. Instead she'd been given the duty of reinforcing and managing the base's defensive systems.

Mei had asked, in one of their few conversations, if building a turret was really so different from building a gun. Satya felt she hadn't expressed herself well at the time, but she thought that it was. Defense was different from offense. Protecting oneself was different from hurting others.

She did not _like_ killing, whatever she had done for Vishkar.

After she left the lab, she extinguished the light from her left hand. The building was dark and quiet as she made her way down the halls, but enough light came in through the windows for her to navigate. At an hour like this, Hana might still be up, broadcasting to the world, or McCree, drunker than he should have been. But if they were awake, they were in their rooms; Satya saw nobody at all.

She knew quite a few people were leaving the next day for various field assignments. Mei was among them. Satya would be disappointed to see her go, but the scientist was brimming with excitement for the work ahead of her. Mei was heading to one of Overwatch's old climate monitoring stations with the aim of getting it up and running once more.

Satya hadn't been sent on an off-base assignment yet. Morrison said it was because they hadn't had any that would suit her particular strengths, but she couldn't help but think they just didn't trust her.

As she crossed over the bridge, she was surprised to see movement outside. Somebody was on the practice range at this hour? Not that she was one to talk...

It was Hanzo, she realized quickly enough, shooting arrow after arrow with incredible precision at the bots that roved about the field. The training field's lights were off, but it didn't seem to be deterring the archer in the slightest.

Satya stepped quietly onto the balcony. There was one bot in the corner that she thought she could get a good shot on, even at this range. She held up her left hand and aimed as an orb of white-blue light grew larger and larger between her fingers, until, confident in the shot, she released it.

Whether she hit the bot or not, she was too distracted to know. As soon as the missile passed Hanzo's right shoulder, he spun about, and the next thing Satya knew there was an arrow flying straight for her.

She managed to get a shield up in time. The arrowhead buried itself in the solid light.

"バスワニさん!" Hanzo's eyes were wide as he realized who he'd shot at. "申し訳ありません! 大丈夫—no, no; are you all right?"

"हाँ," she said, and smiled. It had been over so quickly that her heartbeat had hardly had the chance to speed up. "Yes. I'm sorry. It was a foolish thing to do." She didn't know what she had been expecting. She hadn't thought.

The two of them looked at each other, neither knowing what to say, both probably wishing the encounter hadn't happened.

"You are an excellent shot," Satya said, to break the silence.

Hanzo gave a nod to accept the compliment. "No more than anyone else here."

Another silence, somehow even more awkward than the first. And desperate to end it, Satya found herself making an offer that she otherwise would never have been so inclined to make.

"I was on my way to the kitchen for some tea. Would you care to join me?"

Hanzo looked surprised. He paused, glanced about as if hoping to see some way out of the invitation, and then nodded.

"Thank you. That sounds nice."

Satya regretted asking him as soon as they were walking down the hall together. She did not usually find silence so uncomfortable, but something about Hanzo made it so. If she had just kept the impulse to hit the bot to herself, she could be in the kitchen by now, enjoying her tea _alone._

Hanzo spoke first this time. "It's quite late for you to be up, Vaswani—Vaswani-san. I'm sorry; I don't remember the honorific in English..."

"Ms.?" she supplied. "But no need. Satya is fine."

"Ms. Satya, then," he said. She glanced his way to see if he was joking, but his face was as serious as ever. "In any case, I am surprised to see you up."

"I was working," she said. "I like the laboratory at night. And you, on the practice range so late?"

Hanzo grunted in lieu of a response.

They'd reached the mess hall. Satya carefully pushed open the door. The large room looked weird empty, bare tables and benches and chairs lit only by the moonlight coming in through the windows. Satya didn't turn on the lights, though, heading instead for the kitchen. Hanzo lingered in the doorway.

It occurred to Satya that this was her first real conversation with the man. She rarely saw him except at meetings. He seemed as reclusive as she was. But he was in a similar situation, both entering Overwatch as its former enemies, both on the outside.

She tried to think of a way to ask about that as she rummaged about the kitchen for the necessary ingredients. Once she had a pot of water heating on the stove, she turned back to Hanzo, who was watching her.

"I thought—tea?" he said, brow furrowed, one hand gesturing at the spices she'd set out on the counter.

"Oh! Of course. I'm sorry." It hadn't occurred to her that tea would mean something quite different to him than it did to her. "If you'd just like green tea, I believe Genji has some, but I'm used to preparing it this way."

"No, I will try it."

With his arms crossed and his stance wide, Hanzo looked like he was standing guard, not waiting for a cup of tea. Satya considered asking if he ever relaxed before she figured she wasn't one to talk.

"Is that—" Hanzo cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to be so forward, but your arm—is it a prosthetic?"

"Yes," she said. She stopped measuring out milk in order to lift her fingers and let light swirl briefly around them.

"What happened?"

"Nothing really. When I was first slated to become an architech, my arm was surgically removed. The technology works best when it is not competing with skin and blood." She couldn't really remember the surgery; what she could remember was going through several arms as she grew. It had been strange to have each arm ripped from her and replaced with a newer model. Each time she'd thought of lizards that regrew their lost tails.

"It seems a brutal practice," Hanzo murmured.

"Not at all." Satya smiled. The water was heating nicely. She added the spices, noting that she'd have to ask Winston if he wouldn't mind procuring cardamom for her. "It functions better than my right arm. Apart from its light-producing capacities, it has a finer sense of touch, a wider range of movement, and even the ability to feel pain." The last stipulation had been something of a debate at Vishkar, but ultimately it had been decided that pain was useful enough to remain a feature.

She looked away from the pot, supposing that since he had asked her such questions she could inquire about him.

"And your legs?"

His face darkened.

"A penance for what I did to my brother."

He said nothing else, and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear anything else.

The tea was ready. Unable to find a strainer, she made do with the pot's lid, pouring them each a cup. She was content to remain in the kitchen and lean against a counter while she drank, rather than heading back into the dark and lonely mess hall.

"This is very good," Hanzo said.

"Must you sound so surprised?"

"I am not used to tea being so sweet."

Satya was enjoying hers as well, even if it was lacking some of the spices she would have used at home.

"Why do you feel so guilty for doing what you did?" she asked. "It was your duty. You thought it was right."

Hanzo's eyes, intense as ever, locked onto her face. He did not look angry, exactly, but Satya thought she could see the dragon in him now. But she did not regret asking the question, even if she was more nervous now than when he'd sent the arrow at her.

"What I thought does not matter," he said at length. "It was wrong. Killing—hurting my brother was a monstrous thing. People always believe they are right. It does not mean that they are."

The answer did not sit right with her. She stared down at her tea and took sip after sip. And then, suddenly, it occurred to her how she could correct her blueprint.

It seemed she had questioned herself more since joining Overwatch than she ever had before. She was coming to regret things she had done under Vishkar. But she'd felt justified in doing them then, just as she felt righteous in what she was doing now.

In due time, would she look back at this with the same regret?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo says, "Vaswani-san! My apologies," and then he starts to say, "Are you all right?" before he cuts himself off.
> 
> Then Satya just replies, "Yes," in Hindi.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya cooks and Fareeha eats. And no, that's _not_ a euphemism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the kudos and positive notes! All of you are very nice, and somehow this piece has become my most popular work on Ao3. I don't quite know how I feel about that, but I do know that I am very grateful.
> 
> Just to put this out there: I'm looking for people with whom to play the game! My handle (PC) is maizulee#1573. 
> 
> Enjoy, and thank you all again!

Cooking duty was one of the most universally loathed tasks among Overwatch's crew, largely because very few of the otherwise talented individuals there were actually any good at it. Even Lena was sure to groan and protest when her night rolled around.

Satya had only been in the rotation long enough to have prepared dinner a handful of times before, and she didn't really mind. When it was her preparing the meal, after all, she knew exactly what to expect. She supposed trying the others' cooking was a good way to broaden her horizons, but she suspected that the quality of food was, in fact, having the opposite effect.

There were some exceptions. Hanzo had made sukiyaki a couple of weeks ago, and everyone had been impressed that the pampered Shimada heir was such a competent cook. McCree had a flair for spices and flavorings. But Satya's favorite meal had been prepared by Reinhardt. When he'd noticed she hadn't eaten the wursts he'd grilled, and she explained she was a vegetarian, he'd gone out of his way to fix her something he called flammkuchen and spätzle.

"Schwäbische spezialitäten, Fräulein," he had declared, and she'd been too flustered to ask exactly what any of that meant.

She hadn't really loved the dishes, but the gesture had meant the world.

Tonight was Satya's turn again. She was happy with the arachuvitta sambar she'd made, even if the base still lacked all of the spices she would have preferred to use. Of course, Hana had cooked the night before, which meant expectations were significantly lower now.

"This smells delicious, Satya," Doctor Ziegler said, taking her bowl and offering a smile.

"I'll second that," McCree said. "Nothing burned in sight."

"I'm _right here_ ," Hana sniffed from the line. "And it wasn't burned. It was...slightly overcooked. To release more flavor."

"Keep tellin' yourself that." McCree nodded to Satya and then headed for a table.

"Why're we eating so late, anyway?" Hana asked as Satya ladled her a bowlful of stew. "We've been waiting for like half an hour."

" _Someone_ left the spice cabinet in quite a state, and I took it on myself to rectify the problem."

"Hey, that wasn't—wait, are you talking about how the spices were all in alphabetical order?" Hana turned around to slap Lúcio's wrist. "I _told_ you it was her!"

The musician chuckled. "Maybe she should just leave the spices alone instead of putting them where _she_ thinks they should go."

Satya understood the barb in his words, but elected to ignore it. An unpleasant warmth was growing on her neck and face.

"It is much more efficient to keep them organized so that it is easy to find what one is looking for," she said. It was _sensible._ It wasn't strange. It wasn't strange.

"Look, Satya, I'm sorry, but I don't think I should have to reach all the way to the back of the cabinet just to get the salt," Hana said. Her tone was as light and friendly as ever, though it sounded different to Satya. "It doesn't really matter."

Then she was taking her bowl and heading for her own seat.

"It does matter," Satya muttered.

"Yo, this doesn't have mustard seed in it, does it?" Lúcio was pointing at the pot. "I'm allergic."

"Yes, I remembered," she said impatiently, handing him a bowl she'd set apart from the others. "Just don't have anyone else's."

He looked down at the bowl and then back up at her. Satya, already looking at Genji behind him, didn't see the thoughtful surprise on his face.

When everyone had been served, Satya took her own bowl and glanced around the room. Hana was sitting with Lúcio, which ruled her out. The Australians, currently joined by Zarya and Morrison, were also a non-option. The busiest table was the one where Ana Amari sat.

But the younger Amari was sitting alone in the corner, her face cold and distant.

"Do you mind if I join you, Captain Amari?"

Fareeha looked up, apparently taken by surprise. "Oh, not at all."

Satya seated herself and began eating, but she couldn't help but notice the smile playing around the other woman's lips.

"Did I say something funny?"

"No, no," Fareeha said quickly. The smile vanished as quickly as it had come. "It's just that ever since she's come back, my mother has been Captain Amari. Now I'm simply Fareeha or Pharah. It is nice to hear you call me that."

"You dislike familiarity?"

She pursed her lips. "I worked a long time to be respected as a soldier in my own right, against my mother's wishes. She comes back and strips that away in an instant. To the old Overwatch, I might as well be a child again."

Satya didn't know what to say. She had the feeling, as she did so often since coming here, that she was intruding on something that neither needed nor desired her.

"I think it is rude of them not to address you as you desire," she said carefully.

"It seems nobody else is angry with her for her absence," Fareeha continued. She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to Satya. "I wonder if they are too forgiving, or if I am not enough so."

"Why would you not be angry? She lied to you. You believed she was dead."

"I did," she mused. "And that is only the beginning of the things I resent." Then Fareeha shook her head and smiled. "Enough of me. Tell me about your family, Satya."

"I don't have one." When Fareeha cocked an eyebrow, Satya continued, "I mean, I have a family. As far as I know, they are still alive. But I was only eight when Vishkar took me. My parents, my siblings, I have few memories of."

"I'm sorry. It must seem selfish of me to complain about my mother."

"No, no. On the contrary, it would be selfish of me to begrudge you that." Satya liked Fareeha. She had respected her from the start for her devotion to justice and the solemnity with which she undertook her assignments, but she found herself appreciating the captain all the more as the conversation went on.

There was a silence between the two of them but for the sound of spoons hitting their bowls. All around them, the mess hall was filled with the sounds of conversation and frequent laughter. Satya glanced back at the table where Ana Amari was sitting. Perhaps she should have sat there instead. How was she to complain about feeling like an outsider when she was always eager to relegate herself to the outskirts before anyone else had the chance?

"Have you thought about trying to find them?" Fareeha said a few minutes later.

"Finding whom?"

"Your family. You could now, you know."

Satya considered for a moment. In truth she hadn't thought of it at all. "I don't think it would mean anything to see them," she said. She hoped she didn't seem cold. She trusted Fareeha enough to tell her the truth. "I don't know them. They don't know me. It would just be nostalgia, and whatever came of it would surely fall short of my hopes.

"I do envy you," she continued. "Even if you feel animosity toward your mother, you have everyone else here, don't you? Isn't a chosen family that much more important?"

Fareeha hesitated, and then she gave a wry smile. "There's something to that. But wouldn't you say it's your chosen family too?"

That took Satya by surprise. She frowned. But before she could give much thought to the question, they were interrupted by newcomers to their table.

"What're we talking about?" McCree placed his half-empty bowl beside Fareeha and slid into the seat next to her. Hanzo followed, giving a polite nod to both women.

"Family." Fareeha's smile had vanished.

"We're all way too sober for a topic like that."

"You know, Jesse, I'm surprised to see you with a bowl," Fareeha said.

McCree looked perplexed; Satya felt equally so. "Why wouldn't I have a bowl? This is pretty good stuff."

"I thought you were only interested in eating out of my mother's hand."

Satya couldn't completely stifle her giggle. She lifted a hand to cover her guilty mouth, but Jesse's own guffaw drowned her out. In an instant, though, he had assumed an insulted expression.

"Fareeha, you're gonna hurt my feelings if you say things like that."

"Precisely." She smiled again. She was very pretty when she was smiling.

"I guess I deserve it." McCree leaned back in his chair and gave up the charade. "Thanks for cooking, Satya. By the way, how's the coffeemaker coming?"

Satya perked up at a question she knew how to answer. "I should be done with the blueprints in a day or two."

There had been a lot of complaining about the base's old coffeemaker, which was prone to breaking down and making ominous noises, so Satya had volunteered to make a new one.

"Blueprints? Why d'you need blueprints? Don't you just--?" McCree trailed off, wiggling the fingers of his metallic arm in the air.

"While it's possible to build without a guideline, typically it results in shoddy work. Suppose you set out to sew a dress without a pattern—it would be much more difficult." In fact, some hard-light architechs _had_ been able to build on the spot, Satya remembered. And for some of their examinations, it had been a requirement. But she had always been much more suited for a methodical, planned approach. It was hard not to be jealous of the others sometimes, but her skill in the creation itself had eventually brought her ahead. And certain things, like her turrets, she was so used to constructing that she no longer needed any guide at all.

"Okay, I see your point," McCree conceded. "But still, why don't you just find blueprints online or something? Seems like a lot of effort to draw them out yourself."

"That would be theft," she said, a little surprised that he had even suggested it. "It's only right that I draw them up myself."

He sighed. "No wonder you and Fareeha are hitting it off."

"You could do with a moral compass, Jesse," Fareeha said mildly.

"Why d'you think I'm sitting with you?"

 Satya made eye contact with Hanzo across the table. The archer merely shook his head and returned his attention to his dinner, though Satya wondered if there wasn't a hint of a smile on his lips.

She was content to sit back and watch the two bicker. Slowly her mind drifted back to the question Fareeha had posed. Here she was, with Overwatch, a collection of misfits and outcasts. It was chaos where Vishkar had been order. It was disorganized and eclectic and overwhelming.

But it was warmer, too.

And as she sat there, Satya Vaswani, who hadn't known family since she was eight years old, began to wonder if there might be room for her in this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reinhardt says, "Swabian specialties, young lady!" Swabia refers to a region of southern Germany that includes Stuttgart, from whence Reinhardt hails. At least, I presume that's from whence he hails. Blizzard's description says Stuttgart is his "base of operations," so we'll just assume that's code for "hometown." Okay? Okay!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya and Hana both try.

"Don't be nervous! Come on, just pretend I'm not here!"

That was certainly easy for Hana to say, Satya thought, but it was not so simple a thing to do as it was to say. She didn't even know why she was feeling so self-conscious, not when she'd been building in a far more demanding environment than this one for the vast majority of her life.

It was easy. She had the finished blueprints before her. She had done this thousands of times before. From light into being.

"ठीक है," she murmured. She didn't think about Hana sitting eagerly on the counter. She focused simply on what she was doing. She lifted both hands. Blue-white light sprung from the fingers of her prosthetic arm, and her right hand caught and shaped it with gentle, fluid motions. She let the gesture continue up her arms, then truncated the light with a flick of her wrist.

The coffeemaker sat there, shiny and white and new, just as she'd envisioned it.

Satya smiled.

"Whoaaa!" Hana leaned forward on the counter to stare with awe at the newly-formed kitchen appliance. "That was way cooler than your turrets."

"Turrets are easier," Satya said, slightly miffed. "They require less range of moti—"

"And it works?"

"Well, I hope so. I studied the old coffeemaker. We'll have to test it, but I'm fairly certain it should operate as intended." Satya couldn't resist running her fingers over the hard-light construct. No matter how often she built, she didn't think the pride would ever diminish.

"That's so cool! I can't wait to post this."

Satya looked over, and it was then that she saw the phone held in Hana's fingers. In an instant the pride was gone. Something dark and bitter took its place.

"You were recording?"

"Uh, _yeah_! How often does anyone get to see probably the best hard-light architech in the world work?" Hana's fingers were skimming over the screen. She was still looking down at it, oblivious to the pit opening in Satya's stomach.

"But you said—I thought—" Now Satya was realizing, belatedly, that she hadn't asked Hana not to. She'd just assumed she wouldn't. "Please don't post it."

"Don't worry! You look great. Better than great, actually. This shit's incredible." Hana slid off the countertop and headed for the door to the lab. "Everyone will love you, trust me. And I want to be there when you test it, okay?"

Before Satya could answer, she was gone.

Satya found it difficult to focus on her work for the rest of the afternoon. The unease sat insistently in the back of her mind, making it nigh impossible to give her duties her complete attention. Part of her felt betrayed. Hana had begged her to let her watch, and this was how she repaid her? Couldn't she see that it had been a gesture of trust for Satya to allow her there at all, a gesture that she'd extended to Hana alone and _not_ her millions of loyal viewers?

But she _hadn't_ specifically asked Hana not to record. She should have known that the teenager would be all too happy to record her, what with how she documented all the details of her life for her fans to see. And they'd only known each other for a little more than a month, so it wasn't as if she should have expected Hana to know she wouldn't appreciate it.

Most of all, Satya felt that this was a stupid thing to be distracted by. It shouldn't have bothered her so much in the first place. Clearly Hana did not think it was a big deal, and neither should she.

At Vishkar she had never been preoccupied by such things. She hadn't gotten close enough to other people to risk being hurt by them.

The sunset was spilling red and gold through the broad windows of the laboratory when the doors opened again, revealing not Winston or Torbjörn but the very same person who had occupied Satya's thoughts that afternoon.

"Sorry," was the first word out of Hana's mouth. She slid onto a stood beside Satya and dropped her phone onto the table.

"Oh, it's all right," Satya said. She was more than a little surprised to see her, to say nothing of the apology.

"Lúcio said it was a jerk move, and I guess he's right. I should've asked. I should've listened." Hana unlocked her phone and slid it in front of Satya. "Here. You can delete the video."

Satya picked it up. There she was on the screen, her face serious in concentration as light spun around her arms. Her finger hovered over the trash can icon. Then she handed the phone back to Hana.

"It's all right," she said again, and smiled. "You can keep it. It's not every day that one gets footage of the world's best hard-light architech, right?"

"Right," Hana giggled, and grinned.

"But I really would prefer if you didn't post it."

"If you say so." Hana stood and grabbed Satya's arm. "C'mon. I have to show you something."

"But I really should be work—"

"Ugh, Satya! You can work later. Besides, it's almost dinner. Please?"

Satya relented and followed, supposing Hana wouldn't give her a moment of peace until she did. She couldn't help but smile, though. The acid feeling in her stomach was gone. She felt warm, and not only because of Hana's grip on her wrist.

Hana led her all the way to the kitchen, where Winston was currently busy in preparation of whatever they were having for dinner. He gave both of them a nod, but his attention was all for the garlic sizzling on the stove.

"Here." Hana threw open the cupboard that contained the spices. It took Satya a second to realize what she was being shown.

_Ancho, anise, basil, bay leaves..._

"I'm sorry," Hana said again.

"It's really fine," Satya said, but she couldn't stop the smile or the warmth from spreading across her cheeks. "Thank you." And then, tentatively, she added, "LOL."

She thought Hana might actually keel over from laughing too hard.

Later that evening, when dinner was done, the sun had set, and everybody had dispersed, Satya found herself knocking on Lúcio's door.

His locs were down around his face instead of swept into their usual ponytail, and there was a pair of undoubtedly expensive headphones hanging around his neck. He looked surprised to see her.

"Uh, hey."

"Hello," she said, and swallowed. "May I come in?"

She didn't _want_ to, really, certainly didn't want to spend more time around him than she had to, but it was better than speaking in the hallway where anyone could overhear them. If there was one thing Satya had learned during her brief time at Overwatch, it was that everybody was all too eager to make everyone else's business their business.

"I guess," he said, and stepped back to allow her entry.

Audio equipment filled most of the room. The walls were covered in posters featuring various musical groups, though Satya had never heard of any of them. She did recognize one face, however; a poster on the far wall showed Hana smirking, sitting on her mech and holding up two fingers—a peace sign or bunny ears. She'd even signed it herself: _From your biggest fan to my biggest fan!_

The only chair in the room was next to a cramped desk. He motioned for her to sit there, taking the bed for himself.

"I wanted to thank you," Satya said, before the silence had a chance to become uncomfortable.

"What for?"

"Hana told me that you dissuaded her from..."

"Oh, yeah. You don't have to thank me for that." He still looked surprised. "She's just gotta remember that not everybody wants the things she wants."

Satya didn't know whether she was just being paranoid or whether the double meaning was really there. Either way, she elected to ignore it.

"Still, thank you."

He nodded and said nothing.

She could go. She'd said her thanks, which was all that was required of her. She could stand up and walk out and leave her pride intact. But she was thinking of what Doctor Ziegler and Morrison and Hanzo had said.

"I did not want to hurt anyone," she said. It came out more sharply than she intended. She wished he would stop looking so surprised.

"Uh—"

"In Rio. I did not want to destroy or suppress your people. I did not want anybody to die. I wanted a better life for them, for all of them."

At last the surprise was gone, replaced with probably the most serious look she had ever seen on the musician's face. Then she found herself wishing for the surprise again.

"You can't make a better life for people by trying to force them to do what _you_ think is best."

"How else is it to be done? A world left to itself is a world gone to—chaos." She gestured absently with her mechanical arm.

"People deserve to choose what they want, Satya. Even if they want chaos. People deserve freedom."

She was distracted by the way her name sounded in his voice. It was the first time he'd ever said it. She didn't know if it was a good sign or not.

"Freedom is an illusion," she said. "We are all born into shackles anyway. We are limited by everything about us. What are a few more limits, if they can alleviate pain?"

"I'd rather be free, even if it's just an illusion, and hurting, than caged and happy."

"Freedom is its own cage. Just because you cannot see the bars does not mean they are not there." Satya stood. This was going nowhere. She was more upset than when she'd started. Doctor Ziegler had been wrong; the gulf between her and Lúcio was only widening the longer she sat there and looked at him.

"Thank you again," she said, and headed for the door.

"Hey, Vaswani!"

She stopped and looked back.

"I know you do care about people. It's kind of a pain." He smiled ruefully. "Makes it a lot harder to hate you."

She frowned at that, and then she closed the door behind her.

It had been a waste of time, hadn't it? He remained as foolhardy and stubborn as ever.

But somehow she was still glad she'd tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again for your support! Also, thanks to shark for pointing out that Satya's profession is actually archi _tech_ , not architect. Whoopsies. Anyway, I'm happy you are enjoying this, because I am as well. I have plenty of ideas for future chapters, as well as a good idea of how I'm going to end this. But that's a ways away yet.
> 
> Satya simply says "Okay" in Hindi.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a training exercise goes south.

She would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous.

Everybody else involved in the exercise was running around, tossing taunts at the opposing team, laughing and behaving, in Satya's opinion, completely inappropriately.

Even if it was only a simulation, surely taking it less-than-seriously was ruining the point. Weren't they supposed to act as if this was a real mission, real enemies standing before them, rather than the same people they'd seen at breakfast that morning? They were even using real weapons, with Doctor Ziegler standing by in her miraculous Valkyrie suit.

Maybe it was that cavalier attitude that had Satya so on edge. It was annoying; she couldn't remember ever being so nervous for one of her Vishkar missions, and those had been _real._

Or maybe it was just that this was her first time fighting alongside the team, even if it was in simulation, and she wasn't sure how well she would perform.

It didn't help that her team was composed mostly of strangers: Zarya, who, despite being quite friendly Satya found more than a little intimidating; the man who called himself Junkrat, whose real name Satya had only heard once and couldn't remember, whose explosives and riotous mouth made her uneasy; Zenyatta, with whom she'd never exchanged more than a handful of words; the ever-friendly Lena; and Hanzo.

And a good half of her teammates were currently behaving in a way that suggested they were taking the exercise less-than-seriously.

Lena—Tracer during missions, Satya reminded herself—was running impossibly quick laps around the ex-Talon sniper Amélie Lacroix and giggling.

"We're gonna make quick work of you!" she promised.

"Keep your head low, _luv_ ," came the smooth response.

Zarya and Reinhardt had exchanged weapons and appeared to be involved in some sort of strength contest, which Zarya was effortlessly winning, judging from the sweat dripping from Reinhardt's brow.

And the Junkrat was waggling his tongue at his fellow Australian on the opposing team, jeering and throwing out porcine insults.

Hanzo had climbed up a wall and disappeared, which left Satya alone with the omnic monk, who was levitating in his usual position, apparently undisturbed by the chaos about them.

Satya's attention fixed on Lúcio. The musician was watching Zarya and Reinhardt and laughing. He seemed to sense her gaze on him, for he turned her way, a smile still playing around his mouth. They looked at each other for a few moments, and then he gave her a nod. She returned it.

"All right! Okay, everyone, we're starting soon," Winston called. He was watching from the bridge, along with the others who weren't involved in the simulation. Hana grinned down at Satya and waved.

Nobody seemed to have heard him. Winston sighed and tried again.

"Get on your sides. The exercise's—oh, forget it. Athena, would you please--?"

"Combat simulation beginning in sixty seconds," Athena's clear, computerized voice rang out, much more loudly than Winston. Immediately the teams broke apart to return to their respective 'bases.' "Prepare to attack."

"We've got this in the bag," Tracer chirped. She seemed almost perversely excited about the prospect of shooting their comrades. But then, Satya supposed, she _was_ a veteran, probably with hundreds of such exercises under her belt.

"If it's ticking, stand clear!" the Junkrat giggled.

For her part, Satya was much too dry-mouthed to say anything at all. All she could do was clutch her blaster tight in her right hand and visualize the shields she would draw up about her teammates when Athena gave the signal to start the match.

Her breath and her pulse both seemed to be coming unreasonably fast when Satya felt an unfamiliar warmth envelop her. And while her anxiety remained, it was suddenly much easier to breathe.

One of Zenyatta's orbs was hovering over her. She looked over at the omnic, meaning to thank him, but the words refused to enter her mouth. She settled for mouthing them. The monk inclined his head to show he understood nevertheless.

"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Escort the payload," Athena said.

And her teammates were off immediately. Even with the countdown, Satya felt taken by surprise; they were only a few paces ahead of her, but she felt leagues behind.

She remembered her duty, at least, and with a flick of her wrist she had blue shields of light crystallizing around the others. Tracer was already darting ahead. Zarya was right there, advancing steadily with her light cannon in hand. Satya decided that sticking with the Russian woman was probably a good idea.

No sooner had she constructed a trio of turrets on the payload than the first explosion went off.

The sound went through her like a physical thing. Her blaster dropped from numb fingers and she didn't even notice. All she cared about was stuffing her fingers into her ears to deafen the roar. Zenyatta's orb was gone, and she was shaking and panting once again. Her teammates were rushing ahead, blind to her state. All she could do was stumble along and attempt to coax herself into lowering her hands.

The instant she cautiously exposed her ears again, an even more deafening _crack_ sounded out. The shot hadn't hit her—Zarya's particle field had taken it—but it might as well have. Her fingers were back in her ears, her whole body was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and she dropped to her knees without even feeling the stone rough against them.

She didn't hear the footsteps behind her as McCree flanked the team, Peacekeeper in hand. She _did_ hear the muffled spray of rapid gunfire as Tracer intercepted him. She didn't hear the Brit's voice, tinged with pride and relief.

"Got 'im! We're all clear back here—Satya? Satya, you okay, luv?"

There were gentle hands on her shoulders. She jerked away and they withdrew. Satya lifted her head to see Tracer crouching beside her, worry written on her face.

She needed to say that she was all right, really, that she hadn't been shot, that it was just all the _noise,_ but the words got stuck somewhere between her head and her lips, and she couldn't force them out. Instead she shook her head mutely.

They were sitting ducks. She needed to pull herself together—

Tracer straightened, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled something Satya couldn't hear. Nothing seemed to happen right away, but slowly the sounds of gunfire died down. Gingerly, on tenterhooks, she brought her hands down.

No more shots or explosions rang out, much to her relief. Instead, there were footsteps, and then concerned voices.

"You all right, girlie?"

"Ms. Satya--"

"Give her space, everyone," Zarya's powerful voice commanded. Then a protective rose-tinted bubble had formed around Satya. She had to smile a little bit at that, especially when, a second later, Zenyatta sent his orb her way again.

"Simulation aborted." That was Athena.

Satya slowly sat up. Her face was growing warmer and warmer. What an embarrassing thing it was, to be affected thus by some loud noises. It didn't help that now everybody was staring at her, obviously waiting for her to say something.

She had nothing to say. The words wouldn't come out.

Over beyond Tracer, she saw Doctor Ziegler bending over something. It took a moment for her to realize it was McCree. The brief glimpse of his body limp and riddled with bullet wounds before golden light suffused him was more than enough for Satya. Resurrection technology or not, practice operation or not, it was a horrifying thing to see someone she knew and liked dead on the ground.

Even as she watched, the man sat up again, grimacing and moving his fingers. He looked over at Tracer and grinned.

"Couldn't wait to get rid of me, could you?"

"Sorry," she said cheerfully, not sounding sorry at all. "Had to protect my team."

Doctor Ziegler made her way over to Satya and knelt down beside her. The woman's very presence was comforting, and when she reached out a hand to check her pulse, Satya let her.

"What is it?" she asked. She looked much more serious than usual. Some of McCree's blood was staining the white of her suit.

Satya mutely shook her head.

"Your heart's racing," the doctor murmured. "You weren't shot, were you?"

Satya shook her head once more.

"Oh, I bet it was the sounds!" That voice was familiar. Sure enough, when Satya looked around there stood Hana. She didn't know when the girl had joined them down on the field, but it was nice to see her nonetheless. "She doesn't like loud noises."

Satya was wondering how Hana could have possibly known that, until she remembered the first time they'd played one of Hana's games together. Hana liked the volume ear-splittingly loud, but she'd lowered it upon request.

"Is that it?" Doctor Ziegler asked.

Satya hesitated. They were all _right there,_ and it was such a stupid thing to be incapacitated by. But she trusted these people, so she nodded.

"I see. Thank you for telling me." The doctor straightened up and walked over to Winston. Satya tried not to pay attention to the glances they kept sending her way, but it was difficult. She wished everybody would stop looking at her. Instinctually she began playing with the light from her prosthetic arm. It was comforting, but not enough.

"You know, in my first training run, I got taken down less than a minute in," Lena said. She sat down beside Satya and smiled at her. It was very nice of her, but Satya really would have rather been left alone. "Tried to hit the other team's flank, but Gabriel was there, and—well—" Her smile faltered. "'Course, that was before we were playing with the rez tech, so they were only rubber bullets. Still hurt, though."

If Satya had been able to speak, she would have said that it was one thing to be shot quickly and another thing entirely to be taken down without a single wound.

Lena was trying, and she should have appreciated it, but in her current state she was quite unable to do so.

"Er, okay, everyone." Winston had joined the group. He was rubbing his glasses on his shirt. "We're going to try that again. Satya, it might be for the best if you sat this one out."

It hurt, but she couldn't really argue.

Even ashamed and on-edge, Satya couldn't deny that it _was_ fun to sit up on the bridge and watch the battle transpiring below. With Hana's noise-cancelling headphones on and a bag of shrimp chips between them, she could almost forget her humiliation of the morning. The spectators watched and cheered as Zarya single-handedly pushed three attackers back from the payload, as Pharah executed an impressive skyward maneuver to avoid the Junkrat's explosives, as Hanzo loosed an arrow and two spectral beasts appeared to swallow the enemy team whole.

In a break between matches, when she felt comfortable pulling the headphones off, Doctor Ziegler seated herself beside the two of them.

"How are you feeling?"

Satya nodded, discovered her words had returned, and spoke. "Much better. I'm sorry to worry you. I'm sorry to interrupt the simulation."

"It's no trouble. You're much more important than a simple training exercise." The doctor smiled. She really did look angelic in her Valkyrie suit. "Winston and I were talking, and we wondered if you could build a device of some sort to regulate sound input, to deafen or dampen sounds over certain decibel levels. Do you think--?"

"Actually—" Satya swallowed. Shame was rising hot and thick in her throat once more. "I _have_ built something like that. I wore it on my Vishkar missions."

"Then why--?"

"It seemed...like a crutch. Like something I shouldn't have to depend on." Satya looked down and fiddled with her light. She knew both Hana and Doctor Ziegler were looking at her. "I always thought, if I tried hard enough, I would be able to overcome it. Incapacitated by sound—what a foolish weakness."

"Well, that's just stupid!" Hana said suddenly.

"Hana—" Doctor Ziegler said, in a warning tone, but the girl was not to be deterred.

"The only foolish thing is refusing help 'cause you think you shouldn't need it. You know, when I had my first combat missions, I had to be sedated, I was so scared. But there's nothing shameful about it! If you can't help it, you can't help it."

Apparently finished, Hana sat back, folded her arms, and munched away on a shrimp chip. The doctor spoke again, a slight smile on her lips.

"Satya, you could say that my suit is a crutch. That if our fighters were skilled enough, we wouldn't need healing or resurrection. But Hana is right—there is nothing shameful in using something that helps you."

There was an uncomfortable tightness in Satya's throat. She didn't know where to look or what to say. These people were so _kind._

"You don't—think it's foolish?"

"Not at all," Doctor Ziegler said, and Hana shook her head emphatically.

"Very well then," Satya said under her breath, and she allowed herself a smile.

It was easy enough to find the headpiece in her room. After lunch, when the exercises resumed, Satya brought it with her. Her team welcomed her back with smiles; even Hanzo's lips seemed to curve slightly upward.

When the first explosion went off, Satya heard it as nothing more than a mechanical beep in her right ear.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Under 2000 words, I said. Sheesh. 
> 
> Thank you again to everyone! You are all awesome. I'm sorry this took a bit longer; I'm trying to get this other writing project wrapped up, and I've been spending entirely too much time playing the game itself...
> 
> More headcanons! Satya has that headpiece she wears in the game, and it does cover her ears. Also, I like to think that she wears glasses in "civilian form," and that the visor replaces them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya doubts. Also, alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! As usual, thank you to all of you for your lovely comments and kudos. You make me want to please. Um, I wrote a ~sexy~ Satya/Fareeha short, so if you're into that or into supporting me, [you should read it.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7678051)
> 
> Now, onward! Enjoy!

There was a gannet circling high above the water. Its white wings stood out against the painted red and gold of the sky. Satya had watched it dive again and again, infinitely patient in its attempts to catch fish. She watched it and thought of a different sort of sunset, one where the sharp angles of buildings interrupted the sky and the sun was reflected again and again in every surface. But this was incredible too.

"Can you see it, Athena?" she murmured.

Her Overwatch-issue handset, sitting beside her on the rocks, lit up.

"My cameras are indeed receiving footage of the sunset, Agent Vaswani."

"Do you like it?"

"It is objectively beautiful."

Satya shaped a small prism in the palm of her hand, just to see the light reflecting through it. Yes, she missed Utopaea. She missed building roads and skyscrapers, all shining white. Her home, one she had quite literally made for herself.

Something bitter tainted the recollections. Had it really been a noble project at all, or just another cover for one of Vishkar's corrupt dealings? Had the brilliant facade only been just that? Had she participated in the creation of something evil?

Even with a foul taste in the back of her mouth, the longing was hard to resist. She got to her feet, took a deep breath, and pretended. Light rose before her in towering columns with a spread of her arm. The streets were paved with each gentle touch of her foot. It had been a while, and even alone she felt shy, but the movements were still there, and they were still exhilarating. She danced along the cliff's edge, guiding imaginary light with each movement.

The sound of footsteps on the stone disturbed her. She jolted to a halt.

"Who's there?"

"Agents Shimada and McCree are approaching your location, Agent Vawani," Athena responded, though Satya hadn't intended the question for her.

"Thank you," she said, and looked around. Indeed, two men were walking up the slope toward her. McCree's usual gaudy getup was absent, but he was still recognizable. Genji walked beside him, the metallic panes of his body reflecting the sun. They were still a ways away, but undoubtedly they had seen her dancing. Warmth flooded her face.

"Hey, Satya! Didn't mean to interrupt you," McCree called with a wave.

"Oh, that's fine," she said, probably too quietly for them to hear.

"Good evening, Vaswani-san," Genji said with a little bow as they reached her. The part of his armor that typically obscured his face was absent. It was odd to see him without it, even if it was hard to make out his scars in the low light. "The cowboy here and I like to drink and watch the sunset. Would you care to join us?"

She hesitated, the _no_ caught in her throat as she remembered that she was trying to be more outgoing. With an inward sigh of resignation, she spoke.

"I will join you in one of those things," she said, and smiled.

"Just gonna take the good stuff and leave, huh?" McCree pouted.

"What—no, I meant I would—oh." Satya caught the twinkle in his eye and fell silent, feeling sheepish. McCree clapped her on the shoulder and settled himself down on the rocks, in nearly the exact same spot Satya had been occupying earlier. Genji joined him. Satya hesitated and sat as well.

"Not much of a drinker?" McCree asked as he set two glasses on the stone and began pouring golden-brown liquor into them.

"No. It's not to my taste." Satya could tell them that she'd never had enough to make her more than a little tipsy, but it was a little embarrassing. Getting drunk seemed like a rite of passage into adulthood, one of many important steps that she'd somehow missed. "I...don't like losing control."

"Eh, fair enough. Angela's always telling me I should cut back." Genji and McCree clinked their glasses together and then each took a sip. "Stop smoking, too. She's fighting an uphill battle."

Genji cleared his throat. "Your dancing was lovely, Vaswani-san."

"Thank you," she said, looking down at the ground, her fingers playing with the hem of her shirt.

"We really didn't mean to disturb you," McCree said again. "Small base, y'know?"

She nodded; she did know.

"Do you two do this often?"

"When we can. Reminisce about the old Overwatch, catch up, swap stories." McCree took a long gulp from his glass and then gave a long sigh. "Why, you interested?"

"I don't know if I have many stories to swap."

"Oh, been meaning to thank you for finishing up the coffeemaker. Works like a charm. Much nicer-looking, too."

"It's no trouble."

Genji tilted his head to one side. "You seem preoccupied."

Of course she was. She had done nothing but think since she'd joined Overwatch. Tonight her most recent conversation with Lúcio was fresh in her mind, to say nothing of the homesickness that plagued her. She eyed the bottle of whiskey and wondered if it would be good for drowning her thoughts. Then she wondered if that was why they were drinking. She very much wanted to ask, but she thought it would be rude, so she refrained.

"How did you reconcile with your brother?" she asked finally.

Genji snorted. "I'll let you know when it happens."

"What?"

"I don't think we've gotten that far. He's still avoiding me. He won't say more than a handful of words to me." The cyborg shook his head and took a sip of whiskey. "It makes me wonder if he would be happier if I really was dead."

"Hey, now," McCree said.

"No, no. I don't really mean it. I just mean to say that it's difficult."

"I don't think he wishes that," Satya said quietly. She was thinking of a kitchen late at night, sharing masala chai with Hanzo and asking an impertinent question. She clearly remembered the shadowed look of his face. "I think that he will need to forgive himself first, before he is truly open to reconciliation with you."

Genji looked surprised. "Have you spoken with my brother, Vaswani-san?"

"I—oh, well, we had a conversation."

"Really?" Genji let out a sigh and stretched his robotic arms upward. "糞! The man will talk to everybody but me."

Satya felt a little guilty at that. McCree must have caught on, for the next second he was patting her shoulder once more with a low chuckle.

"Don't take him seriously now, Miss Satya. Just likes blowing off steam. And speaking of..." He reached into a pocket of his jeans to withdraw a cigarillo and a lighter. Satya watched, fascinated, as he lit up and foul-smelling smoke filled the air.

"Yeah, don't listen to me," Genji echoed. He threw down the rest of his whiskey and refilled his glass.

For a few long minutes they sat in comfortable silence. McCree puffed on his cigarillo, Satya mindlessly pulled and shaped light around her fingers, and all three watched the sun disappear behind the horizon. The gannet folded its wings and plunged deep into the water. This time when it burst up through the waves again, there was something clutched in its beak.

"You still aren't getting along with Lúcio, huh?" McCree was chewing on the end of the cigarillo. Satya watched, more than a little disgusted yet unable to look away. The scent of smoke was tinged with spices and something sweet. She'd never even smoked so much as a cigarette, either. Another milestone somehow sidestepped; another stone left unturned.

"I don't understand. Why do you trust me? Why does everybody else trust me?" The questions, she supposed, were mostly rhetorical. She already knew the answers. She just didn't like them.

"I mean, when you came here and brought us enough of Vishkar's confidential files to actually bring the law down on 'em, it was pretty convincing." McCree shrugged. "But for the kid, it's personal, you know? Not like Vishkar ever went messing around in my hometown."

"You're very honest," Genji added. There were red pools blossoming under his scarred cheeks, the result of the whiskey. "You're easy to trust."

Easy to manipulate. Easy to deceive. Satya crushed a hard-light diamond in her left hand and watched tiny sparks scatter. "Was that the right thing to do? Can I trust Overwatch?"

Governments and corporations and gangs. Lies and corruption and cover-ups. Reading about UN peacekeepers hurting the people they'd been sent to protect. Filth and scandal and chaos. She'd brought her intel to a rag-tag band of self-declared heroes because she didn't know what else to do with it. She desperately wanted to believe in hope. She needed to think that there was good somewhere, _anywhere._ Once more she found herself revisiting the perennial questions that had haunted her since her youth: how was it so easy for people to lie? To hurt others on purpose?

"Well, you're one of us now," Genji said. "If the organization starts down a path you don't like, it's your right to try to turn it back."

"Like Vishkar?" she said sardonically. That was one thing she'd been smart enough to learn, at least—no one liked a whistleblower. The lesson had been driven in with coworkers aiming guns at her head. In the end, the corporation probably wished they hadn't trained Satya Vaswani so well. "Is this place any better? We all know how it fell last time."

The two men exchanged a look and took a drink in unison. McCree wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before answering.

"To be fair, that was mostly Blackwatch."

_Yes, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you? From the Deadlock gangs to Overwatch's black ops, and now you still have the nerve to play at being a hero—_

She tried to stifle the acrid thoughts. Who was she to talk? What did she know of this man, what he wanted, what he'd thought?

"Semantics," she said quietly. "What is the saying? All rivers flow to Rome?"

"Roads." McCree chuckled, but it was a humorless sound. "You're grim tonight, Satya. You sure you don't want any of this?"

She looked down at the offered bottle, thought _to hell with it,_ and took a drink, careful to keep her lips off the rim. The whiskey was hard and warm in her mouth, though a second later it had turned to fire in her throat. She winced a little. McCree laughed again, this time more sincerely.

"Better to sip it."

"This is nothing," Satya managed, once the burn had lessened. "Agent Zaryanova offered me vodka last week."

"And you took her up on it?" Genji sounded incredulous. Satya wasn't sure whether to be offended or not.

"It seemed rude not to."

"Well, drink up. Sorry we don't have a third glass."

And Satya was glad to accept that invitation, though she kept her subsequent sips smaller. The three of them watched the sky turn from orange to bloody red to deep blue. The stars appeared, a blanket of radiance across the sky, and the base's perimeter lights activated.

It was a lovely evening. She only wished she could have enjoyed it free of the weight on her shoulders, her reminiscences of a dystopian Utopaea.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satya meets an unwelcome phantom.

It had been almost four in the morning the last time Satya had checked a clock, yet she wasn't quite ready to throw in the towel and head for bed. If she stayed up much longer, she thought, she might actually run into some of the early risers—Fareeha, Lena, and Doctor Ziegler on their morning jog, or Reinhardt proudly declaring he was too old to sleep in. Satya usually rose with the lunch-for-breakfast crew, alongside Hana and McCree and Lúcio. In some ways she would have much preferred to be up earlier, but the nocturnal schedule she'd adopted since coming to the base didn't really allow for early rising. It was too bad; the sunrise over the strait was undoubtedly breathtaking.

Perhaps she could stay up to see it today, she thought a little wryly.

The underground shooting range was almost oppressively quiet, so quiet that she would have been able to hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights had it not been for her protective headphones. The cavernous, overly-bright space unsettled her. The bots roving about the room; the concrete walls; the luminance...it made her feel, somehow, incredibly lonely. And yet it wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling. It reminded her of nights in Utopaea, past curfew, when the streets were empty but all the buildings were still glowing with a celestial radiance. Cold, untouchable, reminding her of her true (lack of) size and importance.

(Technically her venturing out had been illegal, but...well. Try as she might, she wasn't perfect, was she?)

She didn't particularly want to be there, especially not with the sleek pistol she currently held in her hands. Every shot felt wrong. Too loud, too much recoil, watching the bots come apart and imagining their automated cries of pain through her headphones. She could disable the sound, but she'd rather not. It was good to remember what she was doing.

This trip to the shooting range was the result of Winston's subtle hints that her first mission was coming up, and Morrison's not-so-subtle hints that she should expand her weapon repertoire beyond her favored photon projector.

If she was honest, her aim really did need work. But even in these static conditions, it was hard to force herself to shoot the bots. She looked at them and imagined shooting Zenyatta; how different were they? How different was unloading a gun into an imaginary target from the real thing?

She fired mechanically, reloaded, and fired again. In between rounds she let herself wrap hard-light around her fingers to ground and soothe her. Over the past hours, she'd definitely improved. Head. Shoulder. Torso. Extremities. Aim and shoot.

Satya finished another round and sighed. Tired or not, it was probably time to head to bed. She put the safety on and pulled her headphones off. The sudden, echoing silence of the large room was almost deafening. She stood on her toes to make as little noise as possible as she turned toward the control panel—

and nearly dropped dead of a heart attack then and there.

The hulking black shape leaning against the wall raised a lazy hand in greeting. Satya clutched her chest, trying desperately to remember how to breathe, much too shocked to even be angry or afraid.

"क्या मुसीबत है?" she managed eventually, wheezing. She remembered the gun in her hand and seriously considered turning the safety off to deal with the monstrosity in front of her, but she did not. It wouldn't matter anyway, would it, not when he could simply turn into a cloud of black smoke and drift away?

"Sorry," that wretched voice rasped, though he didn't sound sorry at all.

Reaper. Gabriel Reyes. Former head of Blackwatch, assassin, Talon operative, somehow welcomed back into the fold despite a past as black as the clothes in which he shrouded himself. He lurked about the base like a shadow, never attending meals, rarely attending meetings. She had only spotted him a handful of times, and only ever at a distance.

She certainly was not complaining.

"What do you want?" she snapped, remembering her English. Her voice was flinty, carefully disguising whatever fear she felt at the sight of this...could he really be called a man?

"I was going to use the range. You were here. You're interesting enough to watch." He shrugged. It was very disconcerting not to be able to see his face, but it was easier to look at the mask than it would have been to look at his eyes.

Satya flushed. How long had he been there? She didn't want to ask. _Watching_ her, watching her on her tiptoes, playing with light, humming under her breath. It was humiliating. It was enraging. A _voyeur._

Next time she'd have to set up turrets by the door, and if they happened to incinerate him...so much the better.

"I would appreciate it if you left."

"Your shooting's my business, you know, if we're sent on a mission together."

_God forbid._

Satya couldn't think of any immediate response to that. She settled for looking pointedly away from him with her lips pursed. Reaper let out a long exhale. Smoke curled up from underneath his mask. Satya was seized with the gruesome desire to look underneath it.

He straightened up and stepped away from the wall. She stiffened at once.

"Let me help you."

"I do not need help," she said. "Especially not yours." She found herself making a rather petulant mental list of the people on the base whom she would ask for assistance before asking him. Hana came to mind first, then McCree, then perhaps Hanzo...and soon she'd run through the entire roster and determined that she would frankly prefer _anyone_ else.

It was comforting, in a way. It was good to know she still had standards.

"I beg to differ. You're a God-awful shot."

She bristled at the insult. Her finger twitched on the trigger of the gun she still held in her hand. She was almost angry enough now to forget her fear.

" _Beg_ all you like; it will not change my mind."

"Haz lo que quieras."

Her Spanish was a work-in-progress for almost a decade now, but the words were raspy and under his breath, and her ears failed her. He chuckled at the perplexed look on her face and moved out into the middle of the room. Satya refused to back away, even when the hem of his coat passed barely a foot away from her. "Athena!"

"Agent Reaper," the familiar computerized voice responded. Satya could have sworn that there was a distinct coldness to the AI's tone, and then wondered if that was even possible.

"Give me the bots in attack mode, highest difficulty setting."

Satya tensed. Reaper looked over at her and laughed again. She was beginning to seriously consider utilizing the pistol still clutched in her hand to shut him up, or perhaps building a turret to do the dirty work for her. But before she could indulge either of those whims, the bots were beeping to life.

She quickly turned the safety off, prepared only in the loosest sense of the word to defend herself. But she didn't have the chance to fire even a single shot.

Reaper moved as fluidly and gracefully as smoke even when his body remained solid. The twin shotguns in his hands made easy work of the bots around him. Not a single hostile shot made contact with him, or with Satya, standing nearby. He hardly seemed to be using his eyes, relying instead on some mysterious other sense as he demolished targets behind him.

It seemed to only take seconds for all the bots to meet their smoking, ruined end. Satya was impressed, and more than a little irritated with herself for being impressed.

"New range record," Athena sounded crisply.

Reaper turned to face Satya once more. The owlish mask stared blankly at her. She liked owls, silent and beautiful, reclusive and nocturnal.

Exquisite killers.

"Shooting's an art. You're trying to make it into a science."

"There is nothing artistic about murder."

He laughed a third time. "Lighten up."

"I'm not—"

"You're relying on patterns. You're studying how the bots move and only shooting when you have it figured out. You think real enemies move based on computerized algorithms?"

"Don't—" The objection died in her throat as she realized, dismayed, that he was _right._ That she _had,_ consciously or not, been analyzing the movement patterns of the targets, waiting to line up the most convenient shot. Like she was playing one of Hana's video games, not like she was practicing for something real.

She had nothing else to say. She stared, distressed, at him.

"So let me help you. It's not something you think about. It's something you feel. I can help you. Hell, probably the best person to help you."

"I don't want to." The childish response came without thought. She was thinking of how easily he wielded his guns. She was thinking of Blackwatch and all the files she had devoured. She was thinking of torture and murder and blood on her hands. She would not become something like that. She would not allow herself to become that.

He cocked his head to one side. She was grateful for the mask.

"You don't want my help, I could ask Amélie to give you some pointers. She has a natural gift for killing, you know. Talon just unearthed what was already there. I've started to think that good, quiet ones make the best murderers. Like you." His voice hissed and rasped like steam.

He was goading her; she knew that. But _knowing_ didn't make not reacting any easier.

"I do not enjoy hurting people," she said, voice shaking.

"Dale tiempo." He shook his head. "Fine. Just think of it as aiming help. Or do you want to watch Song get gunned down while you wait for the right moment to shoot?"

The mental image, repulsive as it was, gave Satya the resolve to pull herself together. She hardened, refusing to show any more weakness to this man, refusing to spend another second listening to him taunting her.

"You said you wanted the range. It's yours. Good day."

She made her way over to the door, aware that she was walking on her toes and hardly caring.

"Idealism will get you killed," he said, quieter now. "You want to see a grey world in black-and-white, that's your prerogative, but you're gonna miss a lot of important things."

She pulled the door closed behind her with much more force than necessary.

_It's not black-and-white. It's just black._

Even when she was in the safety of her small room, window open to the sound of seagulls and the waves, her covers carefully tucked around her, Satya found it impossible to fall asleep.

She was wondering if she was really all that different from Gabriel Reyes. Was the satisfaction of a job well done so different from the satisfaction of a kill? Her work under Vishkar had hurt people. Whether she'd wanted to or not made no difference when the ending was the same. Was she nothing more than a hypocrite?

There were angry tears on her pillow. She hated this. She _hated_ it.

The sun was rising outside when she gave up on sleep. She would go join the early-risers and pretend that forgetting what she had done made a difference. She could already imagine Reinhardt's pleased, booming exclamation at seeing her up so early.

She smiled a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to the TLOU soundtrack while writing this, and now I _really_ want to replay that game.
> 
> You know, at first I was going to make Reaper still Talon-affiliated, but then I thought that this was more fun. 
> 
> Sorry for the wait. Also, sorry for these chapters being so...pseudo-philosophical? IDK. I'm just writing scenarios that come to mind. Satya needs a break, or a hug. Or both. 
> 
> "क्या मुसीबत है" means "what the hell."  
> "Haz lo que quieras" means "suit yourself/do what you want."  
> "Dale tiempo" means "give it time."
> 
> Or...that's what they're supposed to mean, anyway. I, unfortunately, know neither Spanish nor Hindi, so if you have a better knowledge of these languages (or any of the languages in this fic), please correct me!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Satya prepares for her first mission, and Leonardo DiCaprio plays a surprising part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for the delay, friends! I'm back at school, and between that and work I have little time left for writing, I'm afraid. As such, I don't know when the next update will be, either. But this is still my top writing-priority. I'm estimating a max of 20 chapters, a minimum of 15. 
> 
> ...Actually, I wrote a good chunk of this in class, so if I fail, it's you all's fault. 
> 
> (Not really. It would be my fault. But I won't fail.)

It was dark outside, but no sooner had the screen flashed black and the ominous music of the credits begun than the lights flicked on and the common room was abuzz with chatter and warmth once more. The instantaneous switch left Satya more than a little disoriented. She was still recovering, stuck in the world where they'd spent the past two hours, and she didn't understand how everybody else was able to leave so easily.

"Could've used more explosions," the Junkrat declared, stretching his lanky body obscenely over the couch before hopping upright. "Or at least bigger ones."

"You'd still complain they were nothing like the real thing," the ever-patient Roadhog responded, with the air of a parent dealing with an overexcited child.

"True enough. C'mon, Hog, let's go make some fireworks."

The pair were the first out of the room, undoubtedly to make up for Junkrat's disappointment in the lack of movie explosions with the real thing. Satya found herself grateful for the practice ranges' excellent soundproofing, to say nothing of tremor management.

"As good as I remember," Reinhardt declared. "Did you see this back in the day, Ana?"

"Of course," the elder Amari snorted. "I liked it better back then, though."

"And you? You're awfully quiet, Hana!"

It was true. Hana was propped on the arm of the couch next to where Satya, not wanting to touch anyone else, had constructed herself a hard-light seat. She was pursing her lips and making no noise but for the snapping of her gum.

She shrugged and seemed to consider before answering. "It wasn't _bad._ It's just weird, having everything all flat. Looking at it instead of being in it. And no smells or anything?"

Satya thought privately that that was exactly why she had enjoyed it. It was a far less sensory experience than the handful of other movies she had seen. The action was occurring safely on a small screen several feet away from her, rather than projected three-hundred-sixty degrees about her for her to look and hear and, yes, in newer advances, even to smell and touch.

"You youths are spoiled," Reinhardt said, a smile belying his words. "This is a classic, and you complain because there aren't _smells_?"

"Yeah, Hana, in his day you had to walk ten miles to the theater," McCree butted in. Sprawled on the couch and with his hat low over his face, Satya had thought he was asleep. He certainly was good at making himself comfortable.

"Through the snow and the rain," Morrison deadpanned.

"Uphill both ways!" Torbjörn finished. All of them were soon roaring with laughter, even Reinhardt, who tried valiantly to look insulted until his twitching mustache gave him away. Satya, who didn't understand the joke, found a small smile curling her lips nonetheless.

As the credits wound down and the small crowd slowly dispersed, she felt herself enough returned to the real world to stand and dispose of her makeshift chair with a flick of her wrist. She glanced over at Hana, but she and Reinhardt were currently engaged in a discussion of something called Netflix ("They sent out _CDs_ in the _mail_?" "Ha, wait until I tell you about VCRs!"), which Satya had no desire of joining. Instead she stretched, sighed, and headed for the kitchen to prepare a snack before bed.

She wasn't alone in the idea. Doctor Ziegler and Lúcio were both there as well. The doctor looked exhausted, and judging from the mug of coffee in her hands, she had another long night ahead of her.

"Satya. Did you enjoy the movie?" She didn't look quite as tired when she was smiling.

"Yes, I think so." It would take another day, at the least, for her opinion to solidify.

"I'm glad." Doctor Ziegler gave them both a nod and moved toward the door. "Please excuse me. And don't worry about tomorrow. You'll be fine."

Satya nodded and murmured her thanks, the doctor disappeared out the door, and she and Lúcio were alone together again.

"I wasn't sure you'd join us. Movie bonding night doesn't really seem like your thing," he said. He was smiling a little. His tone didn't seem to be unfriendly, but Satya remained tense all the same.

"Hana was persuasive," she said. It wasn't entirely true. Hana had encouraged her, but ultimately it had been the thought of the alternative, sitting in the lab or her room and getting more and more wound up about the next day, that had convinced her.

"That she is," Lúcio chuckled. "So, what do you think? You think Leo was dreaming?"

She stared at him blankly.

"At the end of the movie. You think it was all a dream?"

"I think," she said carefully, wondering if she was walking into a trap, "that it was simply a cliffhanger for the sake of a cliffhanger."

"Yeah, you would say that." It felt like an insult, but his tone wasn't hostile.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm kidding. Look, Vaswani, you don't have to be so prickly. I'm just making conversation, not trying to argue with you."

"Oh." It was a relief to hear. She felt her lips curling reluctantly upward. "In that case...who's Leo?"

Lúcio actually laughed, the way she had seen him laugh with some of the others. It didn't feel like he was laughing at her. Satya was surprised to find that the sound didn't bother her.

"Leonardo DiCaprio. He was the actor. Never mind."

Still a bit confused, Satya simply nodded. Lúcio settled himself against the counter and began valiantly attempting to eat the monstrosity of a sandwich he'd been making. Satya worked around him, pulling out a pot and spices for the bedtime tea that had become routine. For a few minutes there was silence, somehow not uncomfortable.

Lúcio broke it.

"So. First mission tomorrow?"

She tensed, nodded.

"You'll be fine. You've got Jack and Zen and Rein. And you're not expecting heavy combat, right?"

"No. Just overseeing the delivery of nuclear cargo," she said quietly. "There are worries of Talon interference."

"Aren't there always." He gave an exaggerated grimace and shook his head. "Man, I'd like to just crush them out once and for all."

Something they could agree on.

Winston must have ordered groceries; there was cardamom in the spice cabinet. Satya was pleased to see that it had been only marginally disordered since she'd last been in the kitchen.

It occurred to her, probably too late to be polite, that she should offer him some.

"Tea?" she said, trying not to sound curt.

"Nah." He looked around for a napkin. Somehow the entire sandwich was already gone. "Got some business calls to make. Hard to have Overwatch as a part-time job, y'know?"

That earned a reluctant smile.

Then Lúcio was heading for the door. "Good luck tomorrow. Try not to gentrify anything."

She thought it was a joke, even if she found it hard not to let it get to her.

Her tea was done a few minutes later. She was content to lean against the counter and sip from the warm mug cradled in her hands. She was trying not to think too much about the mission.

She was interrupted when one of the two omnics who claimed membership of Overwatch came walking into the kitchen. The robot they'd taken to calling Bastion tilted their head and whistled a greeting, which Satya returned with a nod.

Bastion clanked over to the cupboards. Satya was confused, at first, about what the omnic wanted in the kitchen, but when they retrieved a package of birdseed her unspoken question was answered. Ganymede wasn't perched in his usual spot on Bastion's shoulder; presumably he'd been left behind in their room during the movie lest the noise disturb him.

Rather than leaving, Bastion paused and beeped inquiringly down at Satya's mug.

"Tea," she said. "Masala chai. Ah...milk boiled with tea leaves and spices." She was a bit uncomfortable speaking to the omnic, not knowing how much, if any, of what she said went understood. Most omnics had robust language capabilities, but Bastion units had been built as war machines, nothing more and nothing less.

The one standing before her was miraculous in many ways.

Bastion nodded, looked at the seed in their hand, and beeped once more.

"I'm sure Ganymede will appreciate it," Satya said. "Did you enjoy the movie?"

Bastion and Zenyatta had sat in the far corner of the common room, far from Torbjörn, Zarya, and the Australians. The tension there was one of the most persistent causes of conflict in the new Overwatch.

The series of whistles and beeps that followed was quite incomprehensible to Satya, and she was trying to decide between pretending she had understood or simply dropping the conversation when a voice from the doorway came to the rescue.

"Bastion found the movie quite compelling, and is happy that the presence of gunfire did not detract from their enjoyment."

Zenyatta was hovering in the doorway. He inclined his head to Satya and drifted over to join them.

Bastion chirped, a reproachful sound. What followed was a conversation that left Satya completely in the dark. It was odd to hear the same kind of beeps and whistles coming from Zenyatta that she was accustomed to hearing from Bastion. All she could do was listen to the tones and try to guess at whether they were positive or negative, annoyed or inquiring.

At last the two seemed to come to an agreement. Zenyatta turned his attention back to Satya.

"My apologies for leaving you out, Agent Vaswani. Bastion resents the necessity of interpretation, but has reluctantly allowed me to fill the role."

Bastion gave a sullen-sounding beep. Zenyatta's head tilted; if his face was not metal, Satya was certain that he would be smiling.

"Did _you_ like the movie?" she asked of the monk.

"I did, though I am afraid I cannot relate to dreaming."

That hadn't even occurred to her. "It's almost impossible to describe."

"There are many such things, aren't there?"

Bastion interjected. Satya didn't need a translation this time. The descending tone had been eerily similar to a human sigh.

"Do you think he was dreaming at the end?" she asked, remembering Lúcio's question.

Zenyatta seemed to consider for a few moments. "I do not think it matters. He was at peace. He chose to believe that was reality, and it was enough for him."

"Hm."

"But speaking of sleep, I am surprised you are not on your way to bed. Our transport leaves early tomorrow."

"After this," she said, indicating the tea.

"It is your first mission." There were no explicit questions there, but somehow Satya found herself desiring to answer him nonetheless. She felt warm, comfortable in his presence, as she'd felt when his orb had hovered over her.

"I do not want to let everyone down," she said curtly. _I want to prove that I belong here._

Bastion beeped, a cheerful tone. Zenyatta nodded.

"'That in itself is proof that you will not,'" the monk translated.

Satya raised her mug to her lips and drained the cup. The warmth suffused her. She would sleep well tonight, she thought. She had to. Tomorrow night they would be in Ilios, and she would be watching for Talon agents rather than watching the screen in the common room.

"I'm glad you're coming," she said.

"And I you, Agent Vaswani."

"Satya is fine." Her name, as always, felt strange on her own tongue.

"Satya, then. Good night."

"Good night," she returned. "Good night, Bastion."

The omnic's cheery whistle of farewell accompanied her as she left the kitchen and headed for her room. She did not think of a gun in her hands and an enemy before her. She did not think of the screams of civilians. She did not even think of dreams or movies that stayed safely on the screen.

She thought of friends and comfort and laughter in a warm room.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments always appreciated!


End file.
